First live show of 2022, Safer Internet Day and OlliOlli World

[MUSIC PLAYING] LARRY HRYB: Hey, welcome to the Xbox Podcast. My name is Larry Hryb, Xbox's Major Nelson. You are here for a first. Can we go to the wide shot? Here it is. All in studio for the first time ever.

REBECCA GORDIUS: All Together

LARRY HRYB: This is actually-- you probably see us each week on the official Xbox Podcast. Normally, we post on Friday, but Rebecca here, who usually is in New York City, had to come out here for business, and Jeff and I and Rebecca and the team here said, let's all get together. So this is actually the very first time we've seen each other. You're much taller than I remember.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know. I look so short on camera, but.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I was hoping we could open the door to the studio, so we can get some traffic noise coming in. Like a little bit of New York.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know. Don't you miss that? Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You know what I miss? Is you did not bring me a smoked meat sandwich of any sort. Corned beef, pastrami. I would not have been picky.

REBECCA GORDIUS: You know, I don't think those travel very well, so.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Plane loves it.

LARRY HRYB: You know what? Yeah, the plane loves it. I'm always next to that person who's got the tuna sandwich on the airplane.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Extra onions.

LARRY HRYB: What are you doing? Why are you bringing the food on the plane? You need to-- you can't eat it 10 minutes before? Sorry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You're looking me, but I've flown home with a Philly cheesesteak in the car-- in the plane before.

LARRY HRYB: This is the guy when we travel to, especially, I just remember Austin, Texas. Got to get to the Schlotzky's Deli, and he gets it all, and he brings it on board, and then 10 minutes later he's [EATING NOISES].

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Look, food at sea level is good. We all love food. We love good food. You take that same food and you're 35,000 feet, and it is like 10x. It is so much better. Like, you just have everything's-- like, when you're on a plane, they hand you this tiny little thing of dry pretzels, and you're like, oh, my god. This is great. And when you bring something good like that, it's-- I regret nothing. I apologize for nothing.

LARRY HRYB: You know, when you have a carbonated beverage, it reacts completely different at 30,000 feet.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I do agree with you there. I normally don't drink soda, but there's nothing like a nice Sprite on the plane, though.

LARRY HRYB: So, are you-- you're part of the Sprite family, huh?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, I don't know. Just drinking dark sodas, I always feel like that's not healthier. It's like-- I don't know.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Sprite, it's got vitamin C, it's got the lemon and lime.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, I'm avoiding scurvy. It's great.

LARRY HRYB: Now, wait a minute. How are you on the McDonald's Sprite thing? Because there's a whole internet thing out there about how apparently the Sprite at McDonald's restaurants is on a completely separate level.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Their soda in general. So I worked at McDonald's in high school and college, and let me tell you the hack. Everyone talks about In-N-Out hacks. The hack that we used to do when I worked there is you would get a either vanilla shake or just the cream, the vanilla ice cream. And you do a spritz of orange soda in there. And it turns into a creamsicle, and it is the best. And I would sit there in the drive-thru and just sucking down creamsicle shakes.

REBECCA GORDIUS: No, that sounds really good.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And you know, I'm sure it's--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I thought you were definitely going to say, like, get a water cup and then put Sprite in it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, if you were a self-server. Most of the McDonald's don't have self-serve. What is this show? What are we doing?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know, sorry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm telling you--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I missed you guys.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: If you say that, you're going through the drive-thru, you're like, just take that sundae, without the hot fudge, and just tap it underneath the Hi-C Orange. They'll know. They'll look at you like, you know.

LARRY HRYB: All right. Welcome. Anyway, welcome back. Great to see everybody this week. We had a good show last week. We missed you last week, because you were traveling.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There wasn't that great of a show.

LARRY HRYB: Well, Jeff and I kind of--

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's making up for it this week. It's OK.

LARRY HRYB: We were holding up our end of the show, but good to see everybody. We're here together, as we said. We're going to talk about what we're playing. We've got a couple of interviews later on in the show. I mean, this is the normal podcast, it's just live today, on Tuesday. We're going to replay it. I'll put it in the podcast RSS feed later this week for everybody else who couldn't catch it live, or you can replay it. But we've got-- actually, we have somebody coming up after us today, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. So as part of Xbox's celebration of Black History Month, we've been inviting streamers from the Black community, the Black and African-American community, to come and take over the Xbox Twitch channel. That'll be happening today at noon. Here's this week--

LARRY HRYB: Look at this. Look at this amazing lineup of people.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yesterday, we had MsAshRocks joining us, which was awesome. And then someone you may not associate with Xbox, but a really an awesome journalist and 30 Under 30, Forbes 30 Under 30, Blessing Adeoye Jr. from Kinda Funny is going to be joining us. He's going to be playing Rare Replay. I listen to him every week on the Kinda Funny Gamescast. He's also host of PS I Love You, and just a great voice in gaming.

And so we're really honored to be having him join us and we're his lead-in. So it's up to us to be interesting and to deliver him a great audience, so when Blessing takes over at noon.

LARRY HRYB: So he'll be here about an hour, a little less than an hour. Then tomorrow, who do you have?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, we've got Janey Laney, Milady Confetti, and itsmeTroi this week. And again, we're just very honored to be able to--

LARRY HRYB: What a great line up.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Turn over the channel to them to play Xbox games.

LARRY HRYB: You put that together, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's a team effort. And including folks here, people behind the scenes like Lenox that run the channels, and Alex, and everybody that's here. It's always more people putting something together than it looks like. We just get to be [INAUDIBLE].

REBECCA GORDIUS: Very nice. He doesn't want to take the credit, but.

LARRY HRYB: Can we talk about something for a minute, Jeff? We're going to talk about we're playing. We're going to get to that in a minute. One of the things that we've been playing-- I know you've been traveling, so you haven't had a chance-- Jeff and I have been playing a lot of Halo and grinding away in that.

And just right before this show went live, the Xbox On team over in the UK called us out, like hard. Sam Bateman called us out really hard. Sam, we're coming after you. So it's a clip that you can see, and we can put a link off. If you go into my Twitter mentions, you'll see it in there. But it's Jeff and I-- apparently Jeff and I were in a-- I don't know how they found this clip.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, yeah. I don't know if Lenox has it. This looks like a trailer, but I guess they have a show on Xbox On.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. You can't zoom in on it, but I'm showing it here. But Jeff and I were in a-- Jeff and I get completely destroyed.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, someone double killed both of us and then sent the clip in to just, basically, shame us in the UK. And shots fired, literally.

LARRY HRYB: Sam, if you'd like to play Jeff and I, and we'll round up a little bit of UK versus US Halo action, let me know, Xbox On. We're ready to go. OK? Are you ready? I'm sorry, I just spoke for you. Are you ready to go?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I guess. Now, here's the thing, they cannot bring Benny. So part of the Xbox On, a frequent guest is named Benny, BennyCentral. He's a Twitch streamer who is known for being a really great Call of Duty player, all kinds of shooters. And I've seen him play Apex.

LARRY HRYB: I mean, he can bring Benny if he wants, we're just going to bring--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, as long as he's on our team.

LARRY HRYB: We're going to bring some folks from our team, because we've got a couple of--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Because we have some good players, but they--

LARRY HRYB: Some of which are in this room, not on the set.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, it's true. All right, well if we're going to elevate the stakes, we're going to be hiding in the corner and letting everyone battle it out, and we'll just ping a few shots into the middle, chuck grenades.

LARRY HRYB: Let me know.

REBECCA GORDIUS: You helped, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I helped.

LARRY HRYB: Let me know. Anyway, so yeah. Jeff and I are playing some Halo, we're continuing on that. We don't have our Tenrai yet, but we're still working on it. What are you playing?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Well, I hate to jump ahead, but I tried out OlliOlli World.

LARRY HRYB: Oh, yeah, we're going to play that later. OlliOlli World, out now, today. And we're going to play that. It's a great skateboard game, so we're going to get into that a little bit later on in the show, we'll play that all together.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. So I got my dad an Xbox when I first started working for Xbox.

LARRY HRYB: That's some nice daughtering.

REBECCA GORDIUS: He has used it maybe twice.

LARRY HRYB: It's less good dadding.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: How come?

LARRY HRYB: Is he a mouse and keyboard, or is he just not used to the controller, or--

REBECCA GORDIUS: He's definitely not mouse and keyboard. I think it's just easier for him to--

LARRY HRYB: Wait a minute, wait a minute. It's because he's taking care of Pumba.

REBECCA GORDIUS: No. No, he played Forza a couple of times, and he thought it was interesting, but then he couldn't get the audio to work, and I wasn't around to fix it for him, and so.

LARRY HRYB: Ironically is because you're always having audio problems.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know. But last night I was playing OlliOlli World, and he kind of poked his head in from the living room and he was like, oh, I want to hear what's going on in there. That sounds like a really fun game.

LARRY HRYB: Really?

REBECCA GORDIUS: What are you doing over there? Yeah, because I mean, just the-- I really like the art style and the music. Like, the music and the sound effects. It is a pretty fun game. I don't think I've played a skateboard game before, but I--

LARRY HRYB: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I found myself enjoying it quite a bit, though. I mean, it's really just about timing and everything.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's very welcoming. It reminded me a lot, the gameplay, of Trials. Trials Fusion, Trials HD, where you're generally moving from left to right, and you're trying to figure out your way through, and you keep trying over and over until you get it. I would say in general, at least from the earlier stages that I played, perhaps not as punishing, but it gives you an idea for what the gameplay is. Sometimes you have some very painful-- oh, I haven't done that part yet. But the music and the visuals are just incredibly welcoming. And I very much appreciate that.

LARRY HRYB: We actually have an interview with someone from the development team later on in the show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There's your dad.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Very cool. Oh, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's him. We've had your mom in the comments and your dad's in OlliOlli World.

LARRY HRYB: Is your mom here?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I mean, she's--

LARRY HRYB: Is she watching?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I think so. I sent them the link, and she's working from home today, so.

LARRY HRYB: OK. So hopefully Rebecca's mom, which is a frequent listener to the podcast, she may be joining us in the chat. Be nice in the chat, please.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm looking at the chat. So far, so good. Also, it's really good to see Meg Kaylee, who is a creator I worked with and you might know from GameStop TV, and is now working with us and has been doing some streams. And Meg, you got to come up here to Seattle. It'd be great to see you in person, because it's been a long time. It's been a long time since I've-- about the same time since I've seen you, which is two years.

By the way, doing a show in person, being able to see body language. And you can tell, like, Larry's checked out, I can just keep talking for a while. Whereas--

REBECCA GORDIUS: No, it's good. I feel like we're talking a lot faster, too.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Well, this is what happens, is normally, Larry will say something, and I'm like, OK, I have something I want to say here, but I don't want to talk over you, and there's a delay. I count to three, I start to talk, and then we both talk at the same time. And it's just really frustrating. And then we both, at the same time, go, you go first. And it's just like-- I think we've all, anyone who's done any kind of remote work on Zoom, or Teams, or anything like that, it happens all the time.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Tango.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. At least we're unmuted the whole time, but it's just-- you've got to come back. Got to come back more often.

LARRY HRYB: All right, so we're continuing on what we're playing. Did you play anything else? I mean, you've been traveling, so you probably haven't had time.

REBECCA GORDIUS: No, but I started watching Vox Machina on-- I think that's what it's called-- on Amazon Prime. It's another animated nerdy show, it's really good. I recommend checking it out. That's it.

LARRY HRYB: OK. All right. I'm playing a little bit of Dying Light 2, we had the interview last week. Jeff, I know you tried it out. What else are you playing?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's still very early. Got back into Overwatch this weekend.

LARRY HRYB: I saw you playing that with your daughter.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, she just wanted to play it.

LARRY HRYB: Run good as it always did?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It does. It holds it really well. And I found that we were getting-- we played a ton in 2017 and the first two years, we played--

LARRY HRYB: Your daughter was good.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Almost every day.

LARRY HRYB: She was really good.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, she participated in a tournament, where she--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, yeah, I remember that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Was the youngest person by, like, 20 years and she did pretty well.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Super proud dad moment.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That was good. What I cannot accomplish, she will not get-- Xbox One will never show a clip of her getting demolished. And we got back into it this weekend. And they have this thing called the role queue. If you haven't played in a while, if you played early on, you would always have something where everyone wanted to be-- you'd have a team of five DPSs saying, I need healing, and one healer and no tanks. So now every match is two DPS, two healer, two support, two tank.

And I always like to heal. And you choose what you're going to want to do. And then I found I was getting in-- we were getting into matches very quickly. And we had some really good times. She got a quintuple kill this weekend with a DVA bomb, which is her thing. And just like-- and it was like it all came back. It all came flooding back. And so obviously there's new maps, new characters that we were not sure how to handle. But

LARRY HRYB: You handled it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It was fun getting back-- we did all right. We did pretty well. Had a positive KDR and positive wins and everything. The other thing I've been finding-- have you all been watching the Olympics at all?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Can we talk about that for a minute? Because I'm not feeling the Olympics. And maybe it's just because I haven't had a lot of time to tune in. I wanted to-- my daughter, who's younger than your daughter, I wanted to have her watch it to see things like the--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Figure skating, yeah.

LARRY HRYB: The downhill and the slough. These are athletes at peak performance, and I wanted her to see some of them. Or the biathlon, which is one of my favorites.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Biathlon?

LARRY HRYB: Cross-country skiing and shooting.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: OK. [LAUGHING]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It looks really challenging.

LARRY HRYB: You have to shoot in between your heartbeats and stuff. It's hard. Anyway. But we just never got into it. Is there a particular--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So watching-- going into it, even when it was like it's the first day, I'm like, really? I was like, I don't care. Cut to two days later, I found my combo relaxing for the better part of a week at this point-- which is playing Pokemon with the Switch on the sofa and peak athletes doing that over there. I'm just sitting there chucking Pokeballs and-- it's been very relaxing way to spend-- so we'll play Halo. Which we're all revved up. But then you end up signing off at like 9 or 9:30.

And then that's when all the events are live. So it being in China actually works out really well from our time zone perspective. Because it's the next day there, and all the stuff is happening. We're 10 hours ahead or whatever it is. And so watching it all happen live. And it's been just really enjoyable. All the crazy-- big air, I think it's called-- is just--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, like, the longer course?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So it's the one where they go down a really big ramp on--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, the skis?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Skis.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh yeah, OK.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. And then they do one big trick, and they go. Or they do the one where it's the three big jumps on snowboards. I look at that-- they're doing like, literally 1900s. And I remember back in the day, the skateboarding game or the snowboarding game was called 1080. I was like, oh, that must be really good. Now they're doing double that. Which is--

REBECCA GORDIUS: There's a lot of records being broken this year too, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Yeah. I would not be able to do a zero. Like literally just going straight down the hill and landing without dying would be impossible.

REBECCA GORDIUS: That's the challenge.

LARRY HRYB: I was reading a story about how the downhill, the jumps, the alpine jump, that one of the biggest challenges is because of the gray sky, they lose track of what's up and down.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, they get little-- oh, yeah.

LARRY HRYB: They get disoriented. That's supposed to be horrifying.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oof.

LARRY HRYB: You're flying off a ramp at 100 or 200 miles an hour and--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Whoa!

REBECCA GORDIUS: So I'm a snowboarder and skier. And so I've watched those events in the past. But I haven't been as interested in figure skating since I was a kid and there was Michelle Kwan and stuff. But my mom and I were watching the figure skating, especially the pairs. And oh my gosh, I was-- I felt like such an old lady, because I was like oh, my God. Oh, my God. How is he lifting her?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: He threw her into the air!

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know! He's lifting her with his one hand while also on one foot. It was crazy. And then whenever they'd fall--

LARRY HRYB: Lordy, Lordy, clutching the pearls.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There was that one where-- I don't know if you were watching it, but when he was doing that, and she kind of kneed him in the face. And he totally--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I didn't see that one.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It was a straight up wrestling move. Like Stone Cold Stunner her, basically. It was something like that. And I was like oh, my God.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Wait, was it a Russian couple? I think I did see that one.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It was, yeah. Anyway. Pokemon plus Olympics has been like-- we should do this every year. It's been a good time.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Great entertainment, yeah.

LARRY HRYB: We've got-- oh, right on schedule here.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm looking at the chat. Oh yeah. There was the Russian figure skater did the first ever quad in the Olympics, which was really cool.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, she was amazing.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So thanks for the comments in here. We're definitely looking.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, we are reading the chat. I haven't really had a chance to open up Twitter. We're going to talk about some news in a little bit, because it's 11:15. We got to try to keep things on schedule.

REBECCA GORDIUS: A little, yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Right?

REBECCA GORDIUS: We can talk about Olympics and food all day.

LARRY HRYB: About Olympics. But you know--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's just great to be able to talk to you in a non--

LARRY HRYB: Delayed.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Organic matter. There's a better way to say it. In an organic manner that just works.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I like it. You can't go home. All right?

REBECCA GORDIUS: [CLEARS THROAT] So news then?

LARRY HRYB: News. Yeah. Jeff, what do you got over there? Ooh. You're actually first up with Frost.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, right.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, tell us about Frost.

REBECCA GORDIUS: So today, Minecraft Dungeons announced that we passed 15 million players.

LARRY HRYB: Yay!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Congrats.

REBECCA GORDIUS: It's pretty cool.

LARRY HRYB: Available on Game Pass.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. So the community's still been growing. So the team wanted to send out a nice thank you. And so we started the Festival of Frost, which is going on today until February 22. Anyone who logs into the game will get a free Iceologer Cape. So there's new challenges, there's different frosty themed floors in the tower. Yeah, so it's pretty cool. Recommend folks check it out. Today is also-- can I get to this one?

LARRY HRYB: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Do it.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Today is also Safer Internet Day.

LARRY HRYB: Ooh. Yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Which is just a day dedicated to teaching folks about online safety. And so for that, Minecraft: Education Edition released a world called CyberCraft: Home Sweet Hmm, which is currently only available in the Education Edition. But it's going to be coming to the standard Minecraft game next month. So anyone can try it out. And it just teaches kids about things to look out for, how to protect themselves online, what kind of information can and can't be shared. It's pretty cool. And I think you actually spoke with someone about this content.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, we have an interview with-- two interviews later on. Want to hear a little bit of the Minecraft. Later on, we'll have Dave McCarthy from the Xbox team talk about-- because his team developed a lot of this. And his team runs the safety team here at Microsoft-- or excuse me, Xbox. And then later on, we'll have someone from OlliOlli. But this looks really cool. And it's great. I'll tell you what we need. Safer Internet Day? I love that we're educating young adults and children, how to be safe on the Internet. I need something for my mom.

REBECCA GORDIUS: [LAUGHS] I know. Have her play this content.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's a combination of the two. Is she investing in NFTs--

LARRY HRYB: No, she's not--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You got to watch your crypto wallet.

LARRY HRYB: No. I just get the random-- we all do. We love our parents. But some of them, they're just not used to-- they don't live it like we do.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: We're online all the time.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's been Safer Internet Day every year for x amount of years. And it's always been something like, yeah, yeah, I know what I'm doing. And then we had an issue in my house about a week ago, where my daughter clicked on a link in Discord. And it stole her credentials, and it-- obviously, she didn't have a credit card attached to it or anything like that. But it ended up messaging-- it was something to get like a free month of Nitro. But it wasn't actually that.

Something we all know, don't click on random links from strangers is something that kids don't come out of the womb knowing. And so I think this is really good. I told her, I'm going to make her do it. But it ended up sending that message to all of her classmates. And she was like--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh no. She must have been so embarrassed.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: She was horrified. And I was like, you need to right now send a mail to--

LARRY HRYB: You shamed her in front of her class?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, I don't know that she necessarily realized the-- I didn't go into her school.

LARRY HRYB: Right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But I was like, you need to-- I should have went into her school. But I was like you need to send a message right now--

LARRY HRYB: Shame!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --and you need to say to your friends, do not click this. Because it came from one of her friends. And it's just something that, the point being, besides appropriately shaming the kids when they deserve it, is being able to teach them. And this is a good way to do it. Because you can say over and over, don't click on this or don't-- but the stuff on the internet can be very compelling. And it can fool adults. It can fool your mom. It can fool your kid. It can fool you.

LARRY HRYB: Even my wife, once in a while, says, is this real? And I'm like--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So we went through and we looked. And I was like, OK, so if you look at where it would take you, look at the URL here. It's taking you to some shady site. It's obviously not the real Discord site and everything like that. So it's really important, I think. So me to the parents-- if your kids have access to Minecraft Education Edition, definitely recommend they do it. If not, when it comes to--

REBECCA GORDIUS: The marketplace in the main game.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. Which is next month.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Next month, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And take the time to do it. Because you don't want your kids to lose all your lose all your cryptos or whatever you got.

LARRY HRYB: Well, all those NFTs you bought. Those coffee NFTs?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can practically taste it, Larry. I don't know what you're talking about.

LARRY HRYB: All right, what else we got? We thank you for that. You got anything else? Or Jeff, I think you've got some--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, there was one last Minecraft story here.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh yeah. Sorry. It's been a long week.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's Tuesday!

REBECCA GORDIUS: [LAUGHING] I know.

LARRY HRYB: It's Tuesday.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Sorry. So we have-- thank you. Minecraft announced a partnership with Puma. So we're releasing a limited edition collection. It's a lot of cool athleisure, streetwear. Yeah. It's pretty neat. I've been pretty pleased. I feel like when I first started working on the Minecraft team, it was just very much like, OK, here's a big Creeper on your T-shirt, and it's only available in men's sizes. And as time has gone on, we've made some really good partnerships. And this one with Puma is really cool. So I recommend folks check it out. Yeah. And then there's also--

LARRY HRYB: I don't think I've worn Puma since high school.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Well, if you're a soccer fan, my soccer team was sponsored by them for a while. And so I would wear-- my kid's soccer team is, as well.

LARRY HRYB: I had Puma cleats. That's right. I totally forgot.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There you go.

REBECCA GORDIUS: There's also a skin pack in DLC available in the marketplace. So there's an in-game component to the partnership too, which is pretty cool.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Size 13.

LARRY HRYB: If you're in the chat, we'll put a link in the chat there, linking off to the article that we showed there. So if you're joining us in the Twitch chat, it's there. If not-- you may be listening to this on the podcast.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Commenter dark-stalker said, I thought at first she said it was a partnership with Pumba, your dog.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh! I know. That would be even better.

LARRY HRYB: Wow.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Would be better. Let's make that happen.

LARRY HRYB: Email pumbabiz@gmail-- anyway.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I remember I read this, I think it was a brand study of clothing and then like gaming, and like, where the intersection was. And young people, they want to like, what's the word? Discreetly show their gamer pride. So they don't want to wear something which just says Minecraft on the chest. But something that still looks a little bit stylish, but has nerdy flair. And so I feel like this collection is like that.

LARRY HRYB: That's what I've always said. A great line of clothing and wearables would be things that aren't splashed with logos.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, not in your face.

LARRY HRYB: Or more relaxed and-- whether it's here, wherever.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. That's the way I wear my stuff.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Keeping my logos. There's a comment here, a question from-- I think it was-- it's scrolling-- but ninty-gold was asking about our computers.

LARRY HRYB: Oh!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And so do you want to do a quick rundown?

LARRY HRYB: Why don't you do what you have?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm running the Surface laptop 3, I want to say. It's got the Alcantara keyboard. Obviously it's the best keyboard I've ever typed on a laptop.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I really like your keyboard.

LARRY HRYB: I'm gonna have to send this clip to Panos. What are we doing here?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: This is my daily driver. It's super light. I bring it everywhere. It also comes in a really cool cobalt, I want to say, is the color.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I love how light that one is, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So big fan of that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I used to have that one, and then I got this one.

LARRY HRYB: Surface Book.

REBECCA GORDIUS: For a very shallow reason. But so the screen on the Surface Book will detach from the keyboard, which I've only done like three times since I've had the computer. But that's the whole reason I got it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So once-- this was very petty. But I was on a plane, and I was bored and I was waiting, and I was working on something. I had some work to do. And they're like, sir, you need to put your laptop away. And I went--

LARRY HRYB: [EXPLOSIVE LAUGHTER] I see where this is going.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I hit the thing, I detach, I'm like, are we good?

REBECCA GORDIUS: [LAUGHING] Wow.

LARRY HRYB: So that's the Surface Book. And then over here, this is the Surface Studio. Which does this little crazy--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Wow. Show-off.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Whoa.

LARRY HRYB: That. It's kind of fun. So this is-- we're all Surface family here. So it's got a little pen here that I can write with. So to answer the question.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Nice thing is, we can all share chargers and--

LARRY HRYB: Yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Things like that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's true.

LARRY HRYB: If we forget chargers. Sometimes not. All right, let's get back to business, shall we?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You want to do news, interviews? Where do you want to go?

LARRY HRYB: Do you have any little bit more news left? Because we're--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Couple little stories here--

LARRY HRYB: Go ahead.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --that we can talk about. So something very exciting. When we think about the games that are coming out later this week. CrossfireX. We're going to pour one out for DMX. He is missed. But CrossfireX, as we remember, that "X Gon' Give It To You" trailer from-- that was x019, wasn't it?

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, that was a while ago.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But we get to play that this weekend. Of course, if you have the Xbox Game Pass, that means you get to play the campaign.

LARRY HRYB: You get one of the chapters in the campaign.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yep, exactly. So that is just a couple of days from now. Next week-- this is on the PC side-- very much looking forward to Total War: Warhammer III. And we were able to exclusively reveal the achievements. So games that are coming out on Game Pass, even on PC, you work to get achievements into them. And so very much looking forward to this one. You can see this is made by Sega and I want to say Creative Assembly-- who are known for their RTSs for the strategy games. And this one has incredibly high production values.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Creative Assembly, did they do Halo Wars 2?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I believe they did, actually. Yeah, very good. So that's coming out day one on PC Game Pass next Thursday, February 17. Whatever day that is.

LARRY HRYB: Hey, it's Valentine's Day next week, for those of you that care about something like that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Should we do something special?

LARRY HRYB: That's why I'm wearing pink.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What'd get me? What'd you get me?

LARRY HRYB: Just bringing it up for people that have maybe a significant other they want to get something nice for. It's not too late.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We've had this conversation. Which is just like, I feel like--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Like, where is this going?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Valentine's Day, there's almost an expectation of-- that's the time when flowers are the most expensive, and they have the least cachet. Because it's like, oh, you got me flowers. It's Valentine's Day.

LARRY HRYB: You checked a box. Big deal.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Right. You checked a box. Exactly. So I don't-- that's how I justify not getting flowers on Valentine's Day.

LARRY HRYB: Same with me.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Well, I have one thing that I can look forward to every year on Valentine's Day.

LARRY HRYB: Yes?

REBECCA GORDIUS: My parents always get me a Valentine's Day card.

LARRY HRYB: Aw.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What? So nice.

REBECCA GORDIUS: The only child, you know.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I think I might-- I'll have to--

LARRY HRYB: I choo-choo-choose you.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Wow. Deep cut here.

REBECCA GORDIUS: When I get home, I have to see if I still have my one from last year. But it's very sweet.

LARRY HRYB: That's very nice.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Someone also called out Edge of Eternity is out. Also on the 10th. I want to say it's coming to Xbox Game Pass. RPG, influenced or inspired by JRPGs. So looking forward to that. Saw some new video come out, I want to say earlier this week. I'll definitely be checking that out over the weekend. Oh, and someone said, my name is Jeff. Great. That's actually a meme, I want to say.

The last thing I want to talk about newswise-- so with Far Cry 6, the DLC that had been coming out have been patterned after some of the notable bad guys from previous Far Cry's. So Vaas from Far Cry 3, Pagan Min, who was my favorite in Far Cry 4, and then Joseph Seed from Far Cry 5. His DLC is out now, and it's called--

LARRY HRYB: You play as him.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes! That's what's interesting.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah. They flip the tables.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. "You play as Joseph as he fights to escape the horrors of his own tortured mind, set in a twisted version--"

LARRY HRYB: There's Pagan. We just saw Pagan Min.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. "In a twisted version of Hope County, Montana." Everyone's got their favorite. I feel like Vaas might be the more popular--

LARRY HRYB: All of them are our favorites, because you and I did pretty much all of them in co-op and just wreaked havoc. And it was just nonsense and silly and fun. It's exactly what video games should be.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very true. So that, my friends, is the news.

LARRY HRYB: All right, we got some interviews. You want to get us into the interviews?

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah. So first up, we have Dave McCarthy, continuing the conversation about Safer Internet Day. And then we have Simon Bennett to chat about OlliOlli World, which we will check out afterwards.

LARRY HRYB: When we come back from the interviews, we'll check that out.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: So here we go.

All right, Safer Internet Day is upon us. Joining us is Dave McCarthy from the Xbox team. Dave, it's great to see you. Thanks for joining us.

DAVE MCCARTHY: It's great to see you, my friend. Thanks for having me.

LARRY HRYB: Tell us about this blog post that you put up earlier this week, depending upon when you're listening to this. Because we went through some really cool stuff that Xbox is doing for Safer Internet Day.

DAVE MCCARTHY: That's right. So in honor of Safer Internet Day, we have announced an experience that we're actually making available in Minecraft: Education Edition. And it's built around this idea of providing kids, educators, parents, and caregivers a game that they can actually play to learn about good habits around online safety, and how to be good digital citizens. And it's part of a broader effort we have in Xbox around our commitment to online safety and inclusive spaces in gaming.

LARRY HRYB: Right. And that's really important. Because Safer Internet Day is not something you think of on one day or one month. Your team, which you have the safety team under yours, you think about it 24 hours a day, every day, every year, for many, many years now, right?

DAVE MCCARTHY: We sure do. It's not a job that's ever done. But quite honestly, if we can't make our online gaming spaces welcome and inclusive for everyone, we can't reach that dream of reaching every gamer in the planet and bringing the joy and community of gaming to them. So it's an ongoing process for improvement. This Minecraft: Education Edition experience is one step along the way. There's a lot of others we can share. But we're really excited to bring something that's very approachable, very actionable, and quite frankly, fun for kids and caregivers and parents to try out.

LARRY HRYB: Now tell us about it. Because it's got a very interesting name. It's fascinating. And people have seen the blog post. Tell us about that.

DAVE MCCARTHY: It's a little play on words. So it's called CyberSafe: Home Sweet Hmm is the name. And it's a little play on words in reference to a couple of things. One is, for those of you who play Minecraft, it's actually the sound that the villagers in Minecraft make. They have that little hum that goes on in the background. But it also refers to this notion of, think before you click when it comes to online safety, being on the internet, having connected gaming. And it walks you through a series of experiences that teach you exactly that. The things you need to watch out for with sharing password credentials, accepting friend invites, giving your personal information out on the internet. And we're glad we can bring those concepts together in Minecraft: Education Edition.

LARRY HRYB: And I want to point out that with the Education Edition, which is a huge part of a lot of people's, that are in school, their lives, then all of those things you just talked about, these are programs and programming and events that are directly related to situations and learnings that your team has had in the security and safety space, right?

DAVE MCCARTHY: That's absolutely true. I'm both a parent of gamers, and so I've seen a lot of these scenarios play out firsthand in my own house. But also, I see daily reach outs from our customers, daily reach outs from our players on things that they're encountering. And these are common scenarios. It is a real thing to be able to evaluate who's trying to connect with you, the sources you're getting stuff from. And it's great to use an experience like Minecraft that's really familiar to our players to reinforce some of these concepts. Gives them an idea on how to use a trusted adult in certain scenarios. That's really important. There's a trusted adult who's an NPC character in this experience. And also, where to look for additional resources. Because it is this neverending quest to educate ourselves on what being safe online looks like.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah. And of course, some of the best parents and caregivers are not NPCs at all. Right? They are quite active. And we're here to help everybody. How do people find-- parents and caregivers, how do they find this experience, so they can bring it to their children?

DAVE MCCARTHY: So it'll be available-- or it is available-- for free in the Minecraft: Education Edition. And it actually is coming soon to everyone through the broader Minecraft marketplace. So they'll see it as an adventure there that they can download or stream and get right into, and get into the principles of online safety.

LARRY HRYB: I love how your team has decided to use this universal globally accepted playground of Minecraft as the delivery mechanism. That's so great, because it's so familiar to millions of children and caregivers worldwide, isn't it?

DAVE MCCARTHY: Well, in order to be approachable and fun, I think you do need to offer familiar tools. It's been a theme for us overall, in Xbox safety, is how do we meet people where they are. Our Xbox Family Settings app is another great example of that. You can download that on Android and iOS in all markets where Xboxes are sold. And that's just a convenient way for parents and caregivers to manage the experience of their kids and teens, not needing to go any deeper than a handy app that can provide notifications in the moment as it does for me with my kids, in terms of managing things like screen time, access to content, purchase approval, stuff like that. So there's this greater philosophy we have, of giving people choice, giving people access. And I think this Home Sweet Hmm idea was just another example of meeting players where they are and putting stuff in an environment that's really familiar to them.

LARRY HRYB: And in fact, you talked about the app. We can tune in. We had you on last year to talk about the app and some of the features. And we had some of the program managers on as well. So it's always great to have you back here. People just need to go to news.xbox.com You have a great blog post up there that outlines a little bit more detail about some of these adventures-- let's call them adventures-- what they can do, what they can do together with their parents or caregivers to understand how to stay safe online. Because this is an important conversation to have, both with parents and caregivers, as well as the little ones. My daughter is only four years old, so she's not online quite yet. But I'm looking forward to exploring these with her. It's great to have you on, Dave. Do you have anything else you want to tell us before we let you go? I know you're busy.

DAVE MCCARTHY: No. Just for everybody that is a part of the Xbox community know that this is an area that we are always pushing on. We've brought new teams into the organization. We've invested in new features that you can use on Xbox to help keep you safe. The one thing I would say to kids, parents, and caregivers watching this is, please, please, please create a child account for yourselves. It really is something that opens up a world of functionality for you, protections, features that are really geared around keeping you safe, and quite frankly, keeping you connected to your child's play experience. So I'm always promoting that whenever I get a chance, and this is no exception to that.

LARRY HRYB: Well, I appreciate that, Dave. And I'll make sure I put a link in the show notes about how people can go do that. Or you can reach out to me on Twitter at MajorNelson. I'm happy to point you in the right direction, because I know there's a lot of information out there. And there was a time a few years ago where it, frankly, was really confusing to set up. And your team has a great job of making that easier, helping people understand it. And I've got to tell you, there was a time, as I said, 10 or 12 years ago, where I had no idea how to do it. You could say, hey, how do you do this? I couldn't answer your question. But now, it's so much easier. So Dave, thank you for that, you and your team doing all the great work there.

DAVE MCCARTHY: I appreciate it. The reality today, man, kids, they connect, they play, they learn on the internet. That's where everything happens. So we've got to constantly improve there. And I hope people really enjoy this experience in Minecraft. It's a pretty fun one. So try it out.

LARRY HRYB: Yep. Safer Internet Day. I'll put a link to the blog post that you put up earlier, that goes through everything. Dave, have a great time. We'll have you on again in the future to talk about some more cool stuff, right?

DAVE MCCARTHY: Happy to be here, my friend. Always good to see you.

As we said earlier in the show, OlliOlli World is now available on Xbox and a bunch of other consoles. Joining us now is Simon Bennett, from Roll7. Developed OlliOlli. Simon, thanks for joining us.

SIMON BENNETT: Hey, thank you. Good to be here, man. Good to be here.

LARRY HRYB: Tell us a little bit about OlliOlli World. We remember the original OlliOlli, which was what, like six or seven years ago? And now OlliOlli has its own world. So tell us about that. Because it's really exciting.

SIMON BENNETT: Well, as you know, we developed OlliOlli 1 and 2 2014 and 2015. We took a bit of a break, made Laser League, and decided that we were ready to come back to this game with all of the ambition, all of the things that were on the cutting room floor that we never really got to do. And then, yeah. A ton of exciting new things that we never really thought would be possible, the team have slaved over for the past couple of years. So it's been an amazing trip back into the OlliOlli franchise. But yeah, something very different, something very exciting. And yeah, we're really, proud of it as a studio.

LARRY HRYB: We're seeing a little bit of the gameplay here. And for those of you-- ollie ollie comes from a term that's used in skateboarding. It's a skateboarding game, right? So it's pretty straightforward. But OlliOlli brings a different twist on it than some other skateboarding games. Tell us about what you guys have done to give it your own feel.

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah, absolutely. So really OlliOlli World is an action platformer. So you are skating predominantly left to right on various different planes. The excitement of OlliOlli World is that we've really mixed things up. So there's multiple paths, split routes. We've got quarter pipes, as you can see there. You can ride of backwards and forwards. There's hidden routes, and all manner of moving things as well. So it's really stepped it up from the previous two games.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, it's interesting, because it's exactly that. I love the left and the right. I want to talk a little bit about the art style. Because the art style, so beautiful. How would you describe that art style?

SIMON BENNETT: Candy coated. That's my-- it's a whole kind of new visual identity that the studio has been exploring. We've been working on our own custom render tech to be able to deliver this sort of flat look. And yeah, it's a very candy coated super sort of unique visual look that we've managed to come up with. Super proud of it.

LARRY HRYB: And you can see here, some of the customizations. Because of course, skateboarding is not any fun unless you can customize. And there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on here, right?

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah, the customization, the guys that were working on that just went full-on out there. And really, it is all things skateboarding and beyond. There are some really wacky things in there. As you progress throughout the game, you're going to be unlocking tons of new brands. We built out all of our own bespoke unique skate brands that sit within the OlliOlli World. There's a lot in that customization to get lost in. We often find that people spend about three hours, before they even kick off the game, playing around.

LARRY HRYB: We talked about some of the previous games, the previous OlliOlli games. Tell us about what being on the next gen platforms have really unlocked for you. Because you're on a bunch of different platforms with the release of OlliOlli World. Tell us about what some of this has unlocked for you.

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah, I think it's given us the opportunity to sort of push visually what we've not really been able to achieve in the past. I think having all of that extra headroom has been really helpful. Obviously, visually, we're not PBR rendered or anything like that. We are doing a very unique look. But you do need that extra headroom to be able to achieve what we're doing. So I'd say that I think the new controllers are obviously an awesome addition to how we're able to maximize the feel of the game. The new rumble and stuff like that. It's predominantly the extra headroom that's helped us push what we can do visually.

LARRY HRYB: And I also notice, it's worth noting on Xbox Series X and S, you're going to have 120 frames a second. Which is kind of crazy.

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what, seeing that on a big screen, it does punch, really punches at you. Although we're doing what we're doing visually, once you actually get that 120, oh wow. It's a beautiful thing.

LARRY HRYB: It really just adds to the smoothness now. Of course, the other part of OlliOlli is the soundtrack. Music is such a big part of skate culture. And you guys really bring that into the game in spades.

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah. We've worked with some fantastic artists, labels. Big shout out to the Cascade guys in France and all the artists. We've got about 32 different tracks within the game, and you're actually going to be unlocking music as you progress throughout the game itself. So you're actually sort of building on the soundtrack as you go. So really, really excited for people to discover all the amazing music in the game.

LARRY HRYB: Now I was reading that with the combo system, there's over 100 moves. That just seems extraordinary for something to be able to tie to this. So that's got to be a little bit of a challenge from a design perspective.

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah. I think we've really opted predominantly for the kind of core trick system, for almost a Street Fighter-y style flick system. So you're doing quarter turns, half loops, and full loops to do different tricks. But yeah, we've also added grabs, late grabs, you've got grinds, wall rides, grind switching, manuals. There's just so many different types of tricks that you can pull into a combo. So there's a lot more for players who really want to push their mastery.

LARRY HRYB: When you were designing this 10 years ago for the original, how have you evolved it for the different games? You talked about how this is kind of all the things you-- this particular OlliOlli World is a lot of things you left on the whiteboard. But it's been an evolution for the past decade, hasn't it?

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah, absolutely. I think, as skateboarders ourselves, when we set out, there was a ton of stuff we wanted to do, but we were a small, independent studio at the time. Three or four people originally working on OlliOlli 1. And now with this bigger team, bigger ambition, I think. There was always a lot of things we wanted to do. And I think OlliOlli World is, for us, the complete OlliOlli experience-- I think everything that we ever wanted to do with the game. And yeah, really excited for people to actually experience that.

LARRY HRYB: Right. Well again, it's out right now on Xbox Series X and S. You're also on-- feel free, I know this is an Xbox podcast. But feel free to mention the other platforms as well. Because I know you probably want to make sure that people can play it anywhere they want to.

SIMON BENNETT: Yeah. You can play this all over the shop. It's fantastic on Xbox, but you can also play it on PS4, PS5, on Switch, and on PC.

LARRY HRYB: All right, thank you to Dave and of course, Simon there. Simon didn't have any lights on. So--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's the most colorful game I've played in years. And he's like, inside a broom closet.

LARRY HRYB: What's it's funny is, when we set up the interview, before I started recording, I said, hey, how are you doing, I introduced myself. He says, yeah, good thing this isn't video. I said, well, it kind of is.

REBECCA GORDIUS: OK, that makes sense now.

LARRY HRYB: So anyway, we just went with it. But anyway. Great to hear from him about OlliOlli. In fact, that we're going to play OlliOlli World.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Sure. So one of the things that you all were talking about is the amazing character creator. And why don't we go to that? Because I've got that right here.

LARRY HRYB: If we can bring that up on screen here. See a little bit of OlliOlli World over on the right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And-- I don't know for there. There we go. With the animation. And I was like, you know what, Rebecca, let's make Larry.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Wait, wait, wait, wait.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: What do you think, white or gray? Yeah.

LARRY HRYB: Wait.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There we go. Now you're a taller guy. I don't know if this is height or if this is plumpness. Dial it-- what are you doing? Maybe a little-- middle. Middle of the road.

LARRY HRYB: Can I at least have green hair or blue hair or red?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'm just trying to make--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Change his skin color. Make him-- I really like the orange skin.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK. Like Larry coming back from Hawaii?

REBECCA GORDIUS: From vacation, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's see. Well, first of all, let's see. No, we are not ready to roll. You know what's going to work? Let's get the glasses on.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh yeah, the glasses make it.

LARRY HRYB: I can't believe this.

REBECCA GORDIUS: There we go. Now it's Larry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There we go. We're getting there. I've been trying to talk Larry, for a long time, into a beard. And what do we think? That's a little Santa. That's a lot Santa. What about--

REBECCA GORDIUS: I could see Larry with a nice--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think it works.

LARRY HRYB: That's too General [INAUDIBLE].

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think it works. It's not like that.

LARRY HRYB: Can I have at least, can you give me dark hair? Like when I was skateboarding in the '80s and '90s?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I'll tell you what. Let's see if we can get you a little salt and pepper here. Here we go.

LARRY HRYB: I don't like this. I don't like this at all. Pink?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I like pink.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's all right. We'll keep the pink. What would Larry wear? Here, why don't you take it over from here? Let's see if we can find sweater-- sports bra. A lot of the soccer players wear those. That's a nice sweater. I would wear that. I think you would wear that, Larry.

LARRY HRYB: I think I have one just like that. It's blue.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Shorts or pants? I've never seen Larry's legs.

LARRY HRYB: That's not true!

[LAUGHTER]

REBECCA GORDIUS: --every time I see your legs.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. In the summer, you're always-- that's actually what my character is wearing, the joggers, in my character creator.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Skinny jeans? Did you wear skinny jeans when you were--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Those are actually more like leggings.

LARRY HRYB: I didn't wear skinny anything.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You have that photo from when you had a hot dog stand in Connecticut back in the day.

LARRY HRYB: Right

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And you're wearing the shortest '80s shorts.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I kind of like this.

LARRY HRYB: Hey, man.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's go with that.

REBECCA GORDIUS: You like those?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Or do you want to go with the jeans? You're wearing-- we can make him now.

LARRY HRYB: Could you give me a little bit of flair?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Go over to the tee. There we go. There we go. Shoes? Yeah, actually, the shoes are close.

REBECCA GORDIUS: They have a straight-up--

LARRY HRYB: Can I have some culottes?

REBECCA GORDIUS: I don't know what that is. Oh, those are the shorter--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

[LAUGHTER]

Went with the crop.

LARRY HRYB: Give me my short little--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Actually, you got it. This is what he's wearing.

LARRY HRYB: Well, all right. So I don't get my little short Larry Bird '80s--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, red shoes.

LARRY HRYB: Red shoes. I got red shoes on.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We just have a Larry, with slightly modified hair. But I would say probably an improvement.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Safety first.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Safety-- I think it's underneath.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, it's hidden.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, he's wearing-- but it's there.

LARRY HRYB: It's there.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: He's got his-- he's got an [INAUDIBLE].

LARRY HRYB: With my pink shirt. OK, I see what you're doing here.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. We're making you out.

LARRY HRYB: I get it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: All right. Hit B. And then we should be able to start. Oh yeah. Is that the right-- I think we got it.

LARRY HRYB: I Look like Monopoly Moneybags there.

REBECCA GORDIUS: With the mustache.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Let's skate down Atlantic Avenue then.

LARRY HRYB: Here we go. Baltic.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, Baltic. All right.

LARRY HRYB: Hello there.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. Let's see if we can skip. I think at one point it says, just leave me alone and let me skate. There we go.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, B.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Then we can play. Perfect. Let's do it. Yeah, let's talk about the game. Oh, so you already know the advanced moves. So if you tap A, that gives you speed. If you hold A, then you get like a--

LARRY HRYB: Nice heel flip.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And then if you do like a dragon punch or a hadoken, that's when you start doing the spins.

LARRY HRYB: Right.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, OK.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So last night, I did the first island.

LARRY HRYB: And an achievement.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Unlocked.

LARRY HRYB: Ding-ding-ding. It gives up it gives up like, three achievements in the first 10 minutes.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Someone says, we need to have Larry dress exactly like this.

LARRY HRYB: With the big bushy--

REBECCA GORDIUS: With the mustache next time.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I've been trying for a long time to get Larry to grow out his beard, especially during the pandemic, at the height of it. Obviously we're still in it. But you have every excuse to just-- you know what, let's go--

LARRY HRYB: To be fair, I do let it go long. You've seen me on the weekends when it's longer. It just doesn't look good. It just doesn't.

REBECCA GORDIUS: The map is pretty cool. I haven't gotten out of-- because I just started. So I haven't gotten out of Sunshine Valley yet. I don't know about you guys.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I finished it and met the person at the end and made it to Oregon on the--

LARRY HRYB: If you're just tuning in, this the official Xbox podcast. We are playing OlliOlli World, which is available today.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Is it OlliOlli or are "Ollee-ollee?"

REBECCA GORDIUS: Maybe that was the British--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Because it sounded like he was saying "Ollee." Yes.

LARRY HRYB: It's Olli-"Ollee."

REBECCA GORDIUS: Spelled O-U-L-L.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Extra U.

LARRY HRYB: We got a stream coming up in just about 10 minutes. Who's going to join us? Who are we handing off to, Jeff?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, we're hoping to retain our audience here, so that when Blessing Adeoye Jr.--

LARRY HRYB: We're going to deliver him the audience.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Who I think Greg Miller refers to as the new face, or the new voice, of gaming. When he introduce-- very elaborate intros, Greg Miller being a big wrestling fan. They don't have the entrance music. But anyway, Blessing Adeoye Jr.'s going to be joining us, playing rare replay and taking over for about 90 minutes.

LARRY HRYB: That'll be fun.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Lots of different games to choose from. Rare Replay. What was your favorite classic sort of rare game in that? It's been a few years.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Been a while. I don't remember.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You get everything from like-- what do we have in there?

LARRY HRYB: Perfect Dark.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Perfect Dark. Jet Force Gemini.

LARRY HRYB: Viva Pinata.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think they had RC Pro AM.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, I think you're right.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That was the first rare game I ever played back in the day.

LARRY HRYB: There's another one. Look at this. This is not my account. This is the studio's account. So I've already gotten these.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So tell us how you do the jumps.

REBECCA GORDIUS: What? Sorry, I was focusing. OK, so the jump. So it's actually interesting. Wow, I don't know if I can play and-- I can't play and talk at the same time.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, go on.

REBECCA GORDIUS: So last night, I actually-- it took me a minute to get into a good rhythm. For the tricks and the jumps, you use the left stick. And so you kind of go down and then flick it in a certain direction. And that's how you do a trick. And then A is to kick and to get more speed. But normally, A is jump in most games. So that took me for a little bit of a spin-- pun not intended.

LARRY HRYB: Did you unlock anything new that I can put on--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, so as many choices as there are in the character creator, almost every level. And depending on how many the optional things you do, you unlock more and more and more stuff. So when I was done the island, I went back and I redid my character again, and made them dramatically different, because there was just so many more options.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I really liked the way that the game played. And I like-- you see these challenges, but you don't have to do the challenges-- all of them-- in order to progress to the next level.

LARRY HRYB: This is the skateboard version of Trials.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I told you, right?

LARRY HRYB: It just feels so-- and it's just so much zanier.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Come on.

LARRY HRYB: Nice.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I also didn't realize that if you just push Y, you would get to start over from a checkpoint. And so the first 15 minutes I was playing, I was holding Y to restart the level.

LARRY HRYB: Restart the level, which you don't want to do.

REBECCA GORDIUS: You can do that if you want to get all the challenges. At a certain point I was like, I just need to get this effing thing over with. Just like--

LARRY HRYB: Get me outta here!

REBECCA GORDIUS: When I first started playing, because I was at my parents' house, I shouted a particular four letter word. And I was like, oh man. I really hope they didn't hear that.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You cannot hear--

LARRY HRYB: This is Olli-"Ollee" World.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --this type of language.

LARRY HRYB: Playing a little bit here, unlocking-- oh my.

REBECCA GORDIUS: He said Olli-"Olly".

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Covering all of his bases. You're a diplomat. Yeah the thing that is-- I don't know what I was going to say. But so you hold the stick back. And if you go left, or-- and then when you let go, you jump. Then you start to learn, when you get later into the game-- here's the different challenges. So obviously, all you got to do is beat the level to make it to the end.

LARRY HRYB: Here's all the bonus--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You can do bonus things that will unlock you more and more things.

LARRY HRYB: So finish without slamming.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, I don't even know what that means. But if you spin-- see how I did a bit of a-- oof.

LARRY HRYB: What are you doing to me? Oh! Ragdoll physics.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's like in the Olympics, they skateboard off of the house-- or snowboard off the house.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yeah, I thought that was really cool.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: The shred shed.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Is that what they call it?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think they do. If not, they can have it.

LARRY HRYB: Here we go. If you're just tuning in, we're playing Olli-"ollee" world. And this is Jeff and Rebecca have created me as a character. I don't know if I agree with it, but here we are.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's the checkpoint right there.

LARRY HRYB: And we're just showing you a little bit. We're going to be wrapping up in just about five minutes. We're going to hand it off to Blessing, who's going to do Rare Replay. So we're getting ready for that. If you're tuning in for him, you won't be here long. In just a moment, you'll have to suffer through about five minutes of us. So sorry.

I want to thank everybody in the chat. You guys have--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh no.

LARRY HRYB: Wow. Nice recovery.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Keep it going.

LARRY HRYB: Keep it going. Look at Jeff playing Olli-"ollee" world. Here we go. Almost done.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh, this part really got me. And again.

LARRY HRYB: Look at this.

REBECCA GORDIUS: And again.

LARRY HRYB: And again.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Oh! I think that's the last one, too.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I know it was. You take it over. I find that, in this game, much like Trials, like you were saying, sometimes you go through things, and you trip on the same thing 10 times in a row. And then you go into some sort of zone out state, where all of a sudden you're untouchable. And I think-- I mean this in the most complimentary way possible, sometimes it's fun just to shut your brain off and just flow with it. And I found myself getting--

LARRY HRYB: Kind of like doing Pokemon while you're watching the Olympics?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: There's a little more strategy there. Like, when do I stop and craft some more potions and revives and stuff. Nice. So you're in it. You're in the zone. You were in the zone.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I know I was.

LARRY HRYB: By the way, if you have an Xbox Series X or S and you have a TV or monitor that could do 120 frames per second, this game's--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Did you try that last night?

LARRY HRYB: Yes! It is butter. It is smooth.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You got this. You got it, Rebecca. One more. Yes!

LARRY HRYB: There she goes.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Yay.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Nicely done. So you can just tap-- sort of put the stick over left or right. And then when you let go, you jump. And in each cardinal direction, it will do a different type of grab. But if you do down and then swing it up to the left or the right-- again, sort of like Street Fighter swipe moves, that's when you start doing crazy stuff. So if you hold it down and you start to spin it around and then you let go, you will do those 720s and all the other-- you don't have to do that. You just have to make it through. But as soon as you learn that move, of course you want to try it. So you did manage to avoid all the bananas, so you got-- see that shirt that's--

LARRY HRYB: Is that a banana shirt?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It may have a speaker in it, because it's--

REBECCA GORDIUS: Finish without slamming. We need to figure out what that means.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Maybe that means not falling? Because we obviously did. Very, very much.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I like this, too. Oh, yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Go, go, go!

REBECCA GORDIUS: I was going to say, it shows you your Xbox Live friends' characters as they've designed them in the character creator. So last night when I played, I saw Larry's randomly generated character.

LARRY HRYB: Which is not my character.

REBECCA GORDIUS: Which you can tell it was randomly generated. And then I also saw Jeff's, and it has a little screenshot of them doing a trick. Maybe you'll see mine now.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I will be looking for it.

LARRY HRYB: We got to wrap it up.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh my God. Well, we've got three minutes. You don't want to have dead air.

LARRY HRYB: --from the corner

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Oh, never mind. You listen to the director. So stay tuned, please. Give your support and your love to Blessing Adeoye Jr. We're very, very pleased to have him joining us here on the Xbox Twitch Channel, playing Rare Replay.

LARRY HRYB: So we're going to wrap it up in just a second. You can follow us on social. I think we've got-- do you have that three shot you can bring up, Lennox? The one with all our socials on it. I guess it was all individual, that's fine.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: We were there.

LARRY HRYB: Catching them all.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: They know how to follow us.

LARRY HRYB: That's fine. There it is. Here we go. Hey!

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Hey.

LARRY HRYB: So anyway. On behalf of Jeff and Rebecca-- first of all, Rebecca, great to see you. The first time we've had her in studio. How do you guys think it worked out? I think it worked out great, Jeff agrees. We'll have you back.

REBECCA GORDIUS: I'd love to come back. The best part is, now we're going to go get lunch.

LARRY HRYB: Yeah, we're going to have lunch now. Which is going to be a lot of fun. But anyway, thank you for joining us. If you if you enjoy this, if you're watching on my YouTube channel, like and subscribe. Right, Jeff? Isn't that what I'm supposed to say?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's what you're supposed to say, Larry.

LARRY HRYB: Slam the button.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Ring the bell.

LARRY HRYB: Ring the bell. All that other stuff. We'll be back next week. We've got another great show for you. But get ready right now, Blessing and Rare Replay are coming up in just a few minutes. So don't go away. Thanks for watching. Bye-bye, everybody.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Bye.